Examine:
a)
the different ways in which the issue is
presented in different media (consider the application of technocentric
and ecocentric perspectives; intended audiences
likely audience reactions)
b)
how these
differing perspectives relate to policy recommendations / proposals for action.
c)
The merits of the different perspectives on the
issue.
·
Biotechnology
has the potential to improve quality of life in both the developed and
undeveloped worlds, as well as offering economic potential
Source: Genome Report - Dec. 1998 – DTI
In
this essay I shall assess how different media have portrayed the GM issue and
how this in turn has affected the businesses involved in biotechnology. Also, I
shall look at how the media works in determining the level of exposure given to
a topic. Different media such as television, newspapers and the internet will
be focused upon and how these media work differently but together with a
universal aim of supplying the correct product to the target audience. Finally,
I will identify both the merits of different media and the possibilities of
media coverage in the future.
I
would like to first explain exactly what genetically modified foods are, what
is involved in creating them and discussing some of the issues which have
arisen from the development of ‘Frankenstein’ foods.
·
All plants
and animals contain millions of cells, each of which has a nucleus. Inside
every nucleus there are strings of DNA, organised into structures called
chromosomes. Each cell normally holds a double set of chromosomes, one of which
is inherited from the mother and one from the father.
DNA is often described as a blueprint which
contains all the essential information needed for the structure and function of
an organism, and genes are described as the individual messages which make up
the blueprint, each gene coding for a particular characteristic. No gene works
in isolation.
Genes are sequences of DNA which operate in
complex networks that are tightly regulated to enable processes to happen in
the right place and at the right time. This intricate network is informed and
influenced by environmental feedback in relationships that have been evolving
over millions of years.
Source: Greenpeace http://www.greenpeace.org/~geneng/index.html
Genetic
modification started in the
Many
plants defend themselves through the production of toxins. Through selective
breeding and conventional methods of farming, we have plants and vegetables
that are less toxic than previously. However, due to rare genetic accidents,
genes which have lay dormant for a long time can suddenly produce a great
amount of toxins.
The topic of genetic modification has
sparked outrage by many government and non-government organisations and is now
a battle argument between many huge transnational
corporations such as the biotechnological corporation:
Monsanto
was the brainchild of John Francis Queeny in 1901 in
Monsanto’s
first product was saccharin; in 1903 and 1905 the entire output was sent to a
soft drinks company in
Source:
Monsanto statistics – monsanto.com
Since
then the company has invested and taken over many businesses in the
agricultural and biomedical sectors, giving rise to a multinational agri-biomed-business. A business such as Monsanto with a
turnover of $1,890m in 1999 has a great deal of power. Power in terms of
through the workforce employing over 30,000 in 100 different countries
world-wide, power to control what food we eat, power to control what medicines
and pharmaceutical goods we consume, power to change rules and laws by pressing
the government and so finally power within the media.
·
The
Source: www.hm-treasury.gov.uk
Previously,
media has been thought of like propaganda in certain instances. Biotechnology
businesses have a significant amount of influence and power within controlled
conventional media such as television and recognised newspapers. However since
the beginning of the information revolution, and not just the internet,
information, opinions, views and feelings about the actions of a businesses
like Monsanto are far easier to locate, and so brings a perspective which
Monsanto cannot control but would do anything to stop.
The
information revolution has therefore benefited the non-government organisations
such as Greenpeace because their views can be expressed globally with no
control.
One
of the main problems with media is that it survives on basically disasters. For
instance, the death of the Princess of Wales brought an astounding amount of
media attention. When there is no emergency situation to report on somewhere in
the world, we see the media frenzy trying to find something to report on,
something for people to watch, read or listen to.
Which brings us to GM food again. The media created the image of ‘Frankenstein
foods’ so they could report on an issue which would concern everyone and so
everyone would be interested in what was to be said, more newspapers bought,
radio programmes listen to, web sites read, more money.
The
action of very influential media created panic amongst the British public. On
one hand we have many scientists and businesses claiming that the food is safe
and that gene technology will carry us through the twenty first century,
eradicating world hunger and boosting crop productivity levels. On the other
hand, biologists claim that tampering with the genetic make-up of plants can
bring long-term effects on life, never seen before. For instance, a genetically
altered crop may survive untroubled by nature for the first 15 years, but after
that when nature catches up, a super-weed is born that is resistant to all
herbicides and pesticides, because it’s genes have
been changed by nature (species evolution) unlike the engineered crop. Even if
we don’t want to eat the stuff it’s in 70% of processed food (E.U. figure
Easter 1999) in shops in the most popular form of GM food, maize and soya.
Action
has been taken and there is now a public view of near hatred of GM food. Is
that justified? Vitamin A deficiency claimed more than 400m children's lives in
the third world in 1998. One of the problems in attempting to get vitamins to
the children who need them is not only the cost of pills and injections but
also the physical and manpower constraints of distributing the drugs to the
people who need them. However if, through genetic engineering, vitamin A was
added to rice, the only staple food that these children eat then many millions
of lives could be saved each year.
‘Media’
consists of Television, the Internet, Radio, Newspapers and any other way of
communicating ‘news and views’. If one estimates the number of businesses and
corporations throughout
1. Keep it short. Strip your message to the bare bones. Remember
people hardly have time to read these days. Put your detailed information in a
`fact page' at the end.
2. Think headlines. If the crux of your message cannot be expressed
in a few words (maybe a sentence) it's unlikely to be successful.
3. Use a consistent slogan and
logo. This is the best way to
make your campaign instantly recognisable, especially over an extended period.
4. Do it regularly. Regular communication is essential to build a
loyal and expectant constituency.
5. Be
positive. Don't have a message
which is totally negative. Offer a practical solution to the problem. This can
inspire people. Litanies of disaster simply depress your audience and ruin the
motivation.
6. Set the agenda. Redefine the problem to fit your solution.
7. Be
visual. Pictures are much more
effective than words. Pictures should reinforce emotions. Forget the
intellectual high ground.
8. Appeal to emotions in news stories e.g. conflict, fear,
triumph over adversity (David & Goliath).
9. Entertain. Think of the media as theatre; it is primarily
for entertainment.
10. Match the medium. Tailor the message to fit the different types of
media.
11. Limit the campaign. Keep campaign segments to less than three months,
otherwise everyone forgets the message, people lose interest and the campaign
loses momentum.
Source:
Social Change – see no.7 bibliography
If
we look at these points carefully and apply them into the GM food topic, we see
that there exists the possibility for extensive, exhaustive media coverage of
GM issues. There are many topics such as safety, possible risks/threats,
advantages of, applications of GM, the future of biotechnology which can be
used as worthy media and so there is a great deal of media coverage on GM food.
The
following is an article about the aforementioned company Monsanto from the NewsUnlimited group (newsunlimited.co.uk) important
sections are in bold.
Three years ago, genetics firm Monsanto was the
darling of Wall Street, an all-powerful behemoth poised to transform life
itself. Today, its future looks far from rosy. Julian Borger unravels the
remarkable tale of how
The confrontation between the biotechnology industry and the environmental
lobby is one of the most surprising and telling cultural struggles of the late
20th century. It is decidedly not over but the first round has gone - against
all expectations - to the greens.
The
story of how that battle was won says a lot about the state of the earth at the
cusp of a new century. The forward drive of technological innovation no longer
looks quite so irresistible, and the subversive potential of the internet has
emerged as a powerful brake on the advance of globalism.
It all looked very different in 1996, when the
European Union first approved the import of genetically modified (GM) foods.
The huge
The respected US Food and Drug Administration
(FDA) had given its approval to the marketing of GM crops, while US
environmental groups could only mutter in disapproval, obliged to acknowledge
it was unable to prove that genetically engineered food was at all harmful.
This silent revolution made the market leader, Monsanto, the most profitable agri-industrial corporation on the planet, with enough
money to hire former senior members of the
It has not quite worked out like that. Monsanto's
fall has been as sudden as Shapiro's dream was lofty. Its stock price has
slumped and there were reports last week that the company could be broken up or
sold off by the end of the year. European consumers proved far less willing
than their American counterparts to trust in the wisdom of the authorities,
especially in the wake of the mad cow disease outbreaks and a string of other
food scares. Newspaper coverage in
Meanwhile,
the guerrilla activism of the radical environmental groups, whose destructive
forays into experimental GM plantations became an almost weekly event, received
front page treatment, whereas American protesters had been
rejected as an insignificant crank minority. The consumer backlash made itself felt in supermarkets
in
The tide turned on the GM industry in the space
of a few months this year - so quickly that its executives did not see it
coming. Monsanto's rivals, including DuPont and
Last month, a pale and humbled Shapiro went
before his arch-foes in Greenpeace to apologise for his vaulting ambitions.
"Our confidence in this technology and our enthusiasm for it has, I think,
been widely seen - and understandably so - as condescension or indeed
arrogance," he confessed.
Earlier this year, Shapiro had confidently
believed
It was clear that
The stage was set for a showdown at a meeting of
European environment ministers in
In
In the run-up to the June meeting, events began
to run against the GM industry. A study carried out by
Cornell university found that the pollen produced by GM corn was lethal
to the caterpillar of the popular Monarch butterfly.
It was the first evidence that GM crops could
have a long-term impact on biodiversity, which could not be foreseen in an FDA
laboratory, and it had a serious impact on the debate.
European blockade had immediate knock-on effects
around the world. Over the summer, Japanese brewers and the main producer of
corn tortillas in
Monsanto is currently holding a series of
meetings with critics such as Rifkin to ask what it has to do to regain its
credibility. Meanwhile, after insisting for years that labelling was
unnecessary as GM food was "substantially equivalent" to unmodified
produce, the FDA is holding a series of public consultations on whether to
reverse that policy.
For the time being, the rush towards a
genetically modified diet has been slowed to a more cautious pace. It has been,
Rifkin argues, a cultural victory for
"This was seen as an attack on cultural
diversity," he said. "Cultural and bio-diversity is converging into
one issue. Food is the last thing people feel they can control."
The
information that we read in newspapers, hear on the radio and browse through on
the internet relating to the GM issue
will be screened like propaganda material to ensure that once the finished
article is published, it appeals exactly to the person at which the media is
aimed.
For
instance, the Sun newspaper carried many headlines with the Frankenstein Food
slogan, with many pictures of GM activists, GM fields and articles very much
against GM foods. Being the most popular newspaper in the
This
type of media exposure is often associated with newspapers because many still rely
heavily on the sale of a newspaper through the bold headline, sparking interest
in the paper and hopefully the purchase of the paper.
Television
and radio coverage of such issues will depend like the newspapers on who the
indented audience is, unlike the newspapers which are daily, where the soaking
up of information can be spread out throughout the day as the paper may be read
or glanced at through periods of the day, television must report the issue most
important at the time.
One
of the key aspects to media success is the ability to convey one’s point in as
fewer words as possible (see point 1 of Social Change above) and so news
coverage of the GM issue on television may only be limited to what may appear
interesting topics such as any guerrilla actions against GM companies or fresh
evidence to support the claims against GM foods in the UK. A more in depth
perspective into the GM issue which may uncover some of the scientific
background to support for GM food, may only be found through special programmes
such as Horizon which many people may avoid because of their particular viewing
preferences and an inertia to change their views once
decided.
·
Understanding
the policy positions of all the interest groups and government actors in the
current round of agri-biotechnology regulations boils
down to understanding their risk assessment of continued and increased
commercial use of the products in terms of two competing interpretations of the
technology.
Source: Environmental Issues – about.com
The
first group assumes that current biotechnology methods are similar to another
widely accepted agricultural practice, plant breeding. Plant breeding involves
the haphazard and wholesale transfer of gene sequences between similar species,
biotechnology techniques are best characterised by their precision. Genetic
modification in the laboratory transfers one particular gene trait to the seed.
Unlike traditional plant breeding practices, genetic modification also involves
cross species breeding practices that do not and can not occur in nature.
The
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) uses a term
“substantially equivalent” to define the practice of biotechnology.
In
order to demonstrate that GM food is substantially equivalent to its organic
counterpart, OECD produced a report named Safety Evaluation of Foods Derived
from Modern Biotechnology (see report link in Bibliography)
In
the policy world, supporters of the “substantial equivalence” position are
commonly challenged by proponents of novelty or difference arguments.
Practically speaking, the “difference” position assumes that as much as current
biotechnology and plant breeding techniques share similar characteristics, they
also differ. Whereas, plant breeding involves the haphazard and wholesale
transfer of gene sequences between similar species, biotechnology techniques
are best characterised by their precision. Genetic modification in the
laboratory transfers one particular gene trait to the seed. Unlike traditional
plant breeding practices, genetic modification also involves cross species
breeding practices that do not and can not occur in nature.
Taken
together, supporters of the "differences" position view the research
of the “substantially equivalent” school with scepticism. If there are
differences in the types of foods produced by the two different techniques,
then past research in the environment and health risks with traditional plant
breeding is not a not a sufficient and sound scientific record for the purpose
of policy making. Adherents to the differences school differ only in their
views on the degree of confidence policy makers can place in past research. In
policy terms the issue boils down to questions of the duration and number of
necessary new studies.
Although
the Internet is merely mentioned as another type of media above, the internet
itself has revolutionised the way that users can access information. For
instance, during the middle 1980’s when the main environmental issues were
being covered by the conventional media such as television and newspapers, they
could control what access people had to non-governmental controlled media
related articles. Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, WWF and other such
environmental groups have huge web-sites with very detailed information, links
to other sites, and most importantly have information displayed as they want,
accessible by anyone with connection anywhere in the world.
Although
many claim that internet sites may contain un-official statements and
inaccurate data, well known and increasingly less well known organisations
exist on their web-sites containing the most accurate information available
detailing their views on the issue.
The
relative merits of conventional media coverage (e.g. television, radio and
newspapers) although controlling what we read still offer the possibility to
read about in either great depth or in simple short format; depending on what
they target audience wants to read. The information revolution has affected the
way in which we, the target audience receive our information from different
media. The Internet allows everybody an equal opportunity to make their views
public, and so can either help other people and organisations, including pro
and anti GM lobbies, groups, statistics, newspaper articles and content for
another web-site.
Most
industry observers believe that GM food's time will come again, after a pause
for more rigorous testing. Experts believe that by the year 2025 genetically
engineered agriculture will exist throughout
Word
count: 3,900
NTD.
1.
www.ask.com
6.
www.which.net/campaigns/contents.html
7.
http://media.socialchange.net.au
8.
www.ft.com
12.
www.oecd.org//dsti/sti/s-t/biotech/prod/modern.pdf